Highlandtown, Upper Fells Point, Patterson Park, “maybe Canton if we could find something in our budget.”
First-time buyer Diane Coraggio, 30, was considering the standard alternatives during her search for a home last year when a couple of her colleagues at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health alerted her to another option.
Station East, a community of existing rowhomes and fully-renovated rowhomes as well as planned greenspace, was located a few blocks northeast of her employer and adjacent to Henderson-Hopkins, an accolades-earning public charter school that opened in 2012.
Revitalized by the Historic East Baltimore Community Action Coalition Inc. (HEBCAC) with help from community development grants secured by the Southeast Community Development Corp., Station East will be home to a mixture of new and long-time residents, of mixed backgrounds and incomes.
“I just liked the idea of making a new community out of an old neighborhood,” Coraggio said, noting that boarded-up homes were ubiquitous before the revitalization effort, which began as one of the city’s first Vacants to Value pushes.
There was something else that drew the vaccine researcher and her fiancé toward Station East – a homebuying grant to the tune of $36,000.
Coraggio stated the obvious: “That’s a really fantastic incentive.”
The money comes from the Live Near Your Work program, in which Baltimore City and employers – in this case Johns Hopkins – partner to offer substantial grants for first-time homebuyers purchasing in targeted neighborhoods. More information is available atbaltimorehousing.org.
Coraggio also received $10,000 in assistance through the city’s Vacants to Value Booster program, which may be applied to properties subject to a vacant building notice for one year or longer prior to rehabilitation for sale.
“We liked the idea of bringing that community back to life, and with the financials, we couldn’t pass it up,” she said.
With some homes in Station East market priced below $175,000, it’s easy to see the impact nearly $50,000 in assistance can make.
The neighborhood’s revitalization was made possible, in part, by funds secured by the Southeast CDC through the Baltimore Regional Neighborhood Initiative (BRNI), a four-year state program which seeks to improve neighborhoods through grants for targeted projects.
Now in its third year, BRNI has, through the efforts of the Southeast CDC, provided revitalization funding for Station East since the program was established. The first year, BRNI money provided for the cleaning and boarding-up of vacant homes. The second and third years, the money has funded facade improvements as well as marketing and a model home to entice prospective homebuyers.
“The BRNI money filled a critical gap to jumpstart this project,” said Chris Ryer, president and executive director of the Southeast CDC. “Everyone is pulling together to make this game-changing project work – the city, the state, Johns Hopkins, and most of all the Historic East Baltimore Community Action Coalition,” he added. “The renovated homes will be modern but historic, urban but adjacent to green space, convenient but seclueded on dead-end streets.”
Corragio considers her gutted-and-renovated future home “pretty much new construction.”
“I really just love the idea of having modern appliances and modern amenities while still maintaining the character of these old Baltimore rowhomes,” she said. “I got to pick out some really nice hardwood flooring.”
An apartment dweller up to now, Coraggio is looking forward to something else, too: “I’ve never had a dog,” she said. “I can’t wait to get one and walk him around the neighborhood.”